Where They Rose
by Kikaruu
Summary: This is a sequel to Where They Fell. It focuses on three successors to the Lyoko legacy who stand up against Xana's new reign. At least, they try to. Hilarity does not ensue. Rating subject to change.
1. The Sun Was Angered

This is a story about people rebelling in a world where Xana rules. Consider it a sequel to "When They Fell", okay? Expect a lot of action, uprising, rebellion, love and existential speech. Oh, and I'll explain the names of the characters later; they aren't random by any stroke.

One more thing; I may or may not add a soundtrack to this. More on that on my profile. More on that later. For now, enjoy the beginning, for it never lasts long.

* * *

Wide-open sky? Check. Green, grassy knoll? Check. Sun-browned skin? I turn slightly to her, and my forehead touches hers. Her eyes flicker over my features. I smile at her relentless curiosity.

Check.

I reach across her frame to her right pocket, fish around for a bit. There. The square. I pull out a simple GPS navigator, shake it to life, and hold it up to the sky, blocking the sun momentarily. The screen spits out a couple of numbers, then a couple more. Data flows down its screen, and coughs, rattle and dies. I look at her again; she nods. We figured this would happen.

I try to slide the navigator into her pocket; the case is rugged and rubberized, so it tugs against the canvas; she lays her hand over mine, and we insert it together. She laughs. I laugh. It helps take the edge off the horrible conclusion we confirmed.

We're Iris and Retina, and we're alone here, in a world full of danger.

About a week ago, the old world ended when SF6 – solar flare number six – lashed against the earth. Anything electronic, worldwide, immediately ceased to function. Cars went dead, radios went silent, mainframes went inactive...

More importantly, there weren't any connections anymore. Xana got her wish, neh? The Internet was nonexistent. Phones were nonexistent. There were no electronic connections between anyone; no digital umbilical tethering the young to the walls of the digital domain. There simply was.

And so, at least Xana got one thing right. Laying here on the grass, with Retina by my side... life felt good, for once. There is no stress, just a caress, across her face. There is no harrying, only tarrying, for there's nothing to worry about now, is there? There aren't any distractions, just this small reaction, between us.

And yet, all good things come to an end. I pull Retina to her feet, and into a tight embrace. We needed to move quickly, before any of those drones show up. Rumor had it that the schematics on the web were in production and had grounding tethers. If that was the case, they would be impervious to the effects of SF6, and any future flares. That was worrisome.

We both had a lot of questions, at first. Were the drones real? Who really was the woman named Xana? What was her true agenda? And most importantly, what were we going to do with ourselves? With our lives?

I took Retina's hand and pulled her towards the suburbs. After all, we had a civilization to rebuild.


	2. She Made a Difference

More adventures of Iris and Retina, and a little background to fill in the gap between Where They Rose and Where They Fell. This is looking to be a disjointed little story... and a long one, too.

* * *

"And you call yourself a human."

I rolled my eyes and slammed the cupboard shut. Sometimes, Retina joked in just the wrong way.

She sighed and set the bag heavily on the counter. "I'm not joking."

"And you thought I thought that, why?"

"Because you always shift your eyes when I say that." She had a point. Was I really that easy to read?

"If you're wondering, you are."

I glanced askew at her before shoving more cans into the sack. "You have a knack for unsettling me.

She laughed, and hefted her own sack over her shoulder. "You love me anyway." With that, she left the kitchen, probably to lug the heavy bag of food into the cart and grab a fresh one. I. on the other hand, continued to hunt. Sometimes, if you looked hard enough, you could score jerky. I liked it because it was lighter than the canned food. Retina liked it because it was tough. A break from the mush, she called it.

It never lasted long.

And that described us, for the most part. We never stayed long at one location. We never stayed long on raids like this. For that matter, we were reaching our time limit – we never lingered at an abandoned residence. Of course, we could have, but we didn't chance it. Although people were few and far between, with most already locked in Xana's clutches, they were still out there. They were still people, and still fearful.

I heard that one of the others we met was shot, mistaken for a drone. And that got me thinking, you know? What made us so different from the drones? I mean, they aren't zombies. They just look like people, but... That drone. That buzzing hum, low-pitched but audible, that accompanied them. They sounded like power lines or something. They were just weird.

We knew Xana built them at some point, likely during her rise to power. We just didn't know why. Whenever we came across one, it didn't notice us. It just kept moving, oblivious to our presence. And that was for the best, I feel. We heard... stories. Heard about those whom they _did_ notice. We knew what they were supposed to do – improve and maintain buildings, grow crops, and the like. Still, though... we weren't stupid. There was something definitely wrong with the drones.

At any rate, we hadn't heard them lately, Retina and I. For the moment, we were still under the radar.

"Iris."

I glanced up, snapping out of my thoughts. There she stood, the other sack full and bulging, tapping solidly against her thigh from the rhythm of her walk.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Tell me again." She had that blank look in her eyes, that appeared then and again. If only there were doctors...

"Sure." I closed the cabinet's door and followed her to the cart. As I dropped my sack into the back, I began.

"See, it all began with this little girl named named Sissi, which was short for Elisabeth Delmas. You remember her, right, Retina? I only refer to her as a little girl because, although she was our age, she didn't exactly fit the part. She was knowledgeable, proactive, insightful, and strong but... She seemed too innocent. Almost like a newborn. She spent a lot of time learning things that were basic for people.

"It was unnerving." I slammed the back shut, and hopped in the front. Retina crawled in beside me, drawing her legs up into her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees. I turned the key and the electric motor whirred to life. I backed out of the driveway. I continued.

"And yet, it was that innocence, that inner charisma, which drew everyone to her. She had very mature ideas instead that young little head of hers. Ideas which would threaten the foundations of some of our principles, you know? What's crazy is that, they believed her. When she made such perfect sense, how could anyone not? Of course, they didn't like what she said at first. But... it was that silence afterwards, in that space that she gave you to reason, that you'd understand just how right she was.

"And then, she'd turn around and ask about why the sky looked blue. Frankly, unnerving." The electric car only had one gear. I stepped off the accelerator to give Retina a little space to breathe from the forces, as if I were switching gears. She sighed, and her eyes closed. The road stretched ahead, winding through emptied houses, emptying out into a larger thoroughfare. I kept our speed light, but purposeful.

"And so, when she announced her plans for taking the reins for a better life, all heck broke loose. She called it the REVO, short for the Revolutionary Entrance: Von Origa; it was her coup. Remember the riots? That's when she announced the drones, too, and the Culling, as she called it. Education and healthcare would become free, and everyone had a choice of whether to take in the system or not. If you chose, you and your kids would become working cogs in the wheel of society, connected to everyone else.

"If you refuse, you'd die. Simple, right? Very much so. It was also very wrong, and no one paid any attention of course. Well, until everyone realized that people were disappearing. Remember when my mother left? And then your father? And my father started pointing fingers?" Retina nodded, a little sadly. "Yeah... all of those people, disappearing like dew."

Empty cars littered the highway like beetle shells. I had to slow to drive between them. Retina's eyes were still closed. Her body rocked gently with the movement of the car. Her mouth moved silently.

"What?" I leaned towards her.

"I said, that's enough. I know the rest." Color started to appear in her face again.

I nodded, mostly to myself. "I'll tell you the rest later." She nodded again. I continued to drive.

Before long, we reached our base. As if I lived in the old life, I hopped out of the car and headed for the rear, ready to grab some bags. Retina stirred slightly, but otherwise made no option to help. I was used to that when she got like this, and lately, she had been getting worse. Of course, we weren't too far into Xana's order of things. But as far as we were, Retina's condition was worrying me. For her to get so sick so often in such little time would be worrying for anyone.

I was too young, really. I didn't know how to help her, really. All I could do was tell her to think on the bright side... even though the skies were perpetually overcast.

I pulled her from the seat, and she draped her arms around my neck. "You big baby," I teased. She merely grunted, muffled by my shirt. "Pretty soon, I'm not going to be able to hold you anymore." I had been telling her that ever since we were children, and I could still carry her like she weighed nothing. It didn't hurt that she almost did.

Well, a little.

I left her on the couch; it looked soft enough. We never knew who the homes belonged to; we just made use of them.

I daydreamed about it all. Sometimes, I just had to pull everything together again, as if to remind myself that it all really happened. This was one of those times, and as Retina slept, I thought silently.

Even before the Culling, when Xana enforced learning, I was a reader. It was what I did. Having someone tell me to read wouldn't change that, would it? It's a wonder that movement was canceled so quickly, I felt. After all, didn't our parents want us to go graduate and go to college and the like? Surely they would support the plan. Yet, it stopped, in less than a month.

Yet, it had run its course.

That was the first time Xana effectively crippled communications. By instilling such a thirst for growth within the populace, Xana created a world addicted to the Internet. Because of the vast stores of knowledge available online, everyone flocked to the web. Funny how that worked, isn't it? One moment, all was well, and the next, all was chaos, because of all of the congestion.

And then everything sort of, well, shifted, back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened. That should've been an indicator that something was wrong. But no one noticed, as far as I noticed. Besides Retina and I, that is.

The next three years passed uneventfully. The second phase of the Culling was well underway, and for the first time in history, it seemed as if everything was... perfect.

And then came the solar flares. Six in total, with each worse than the last. But, it was the very last, the sixth, that destroyed it all. It was unprepared for, and when it arrive, massive and angry and so very bright, it effectively reduced civilization to nothing. Computers. Gone. Telecom. Gone. Technology. _Gone_. All of it, anything that could connect someone to another was destroyed. In that sense, Xana got what she wanted, right? Didn't she say that she wanted everyone to exist without cumbersome words? To be truly connected to one another?

There was no denying that I could feel it with Retina. I glanced at her, then. I could feel the pull she exerted on me. I had never felt anything like it before. It was like I didn't even need to tell her what I wanted to say; she just sensed it, and vice versa. Almost.

It was growing dark, and there was no such thing as artificial light. Sure, some power lines still worked. But home electronics? Shot to dust. I stretched. It had been a long day, but the haul was worth it.

I crawled onto the sofa behind Retina, but it was more than a little difficult to sleep. I was looking forward to the next part of our schedule. In the morning, we'd do a little hunting.

For survivors, that is.

* * *

Next time! Looking for survivors!


End file.
